Three weeks of organized team activities kick off today as the team takes the practice field at Valley Ranch

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The Dallas Cowboys will take the practice field at Valley Ranch today for the first day of organized team activities (OTAs), marking the first time the band’s been (almost) all back together since the team’s season-ending loss to the eventual Super Bowl Champion Giants last New Year’s day.

Cornerback Mike Jenkins won’t be there, and he reportedly wants a trade, following the team’s acquisition of Brandon Carr and their selection of Morris Claiborne with the sixth overall pick this offseason--we’d imagine the rumors after the Claiborne pick that the team was looking to shop him around the league didn’t help much either.

The aforementioned Claiborne is there, but he will be limited to mental reps as he continues to recover from offseason wrist surgery.

Many believe this three week span of OTAs could be crucial to Dallas improving as a defense. Defensive coordinator Rob Ryan has suggested in the past that the absence of such offseason workouts, due to last year’s lockout, forced him to rush the implementation of his 3-4 scheme.

This year, Dallas will have a full offseason to fix whatever was broken in 2011, and a lot of new faces to (hopefully) help the process along.

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